Chapter books for emerging readers (Preschool years)

*UPDATED*

Ever since Doll has learnt to read comfortably, I've been in search for chapter books for her. Yes, I'm very eager for her to start diving her nose into chapter books. I don't insist my children to read so that they can improve English grade, I'm eager because I want them to discover the pleasure of reading. I love to read and I enjoy being yank into another world that I otherwise would never know nor experience. I don't read to better my English and I don't think my English is that great. I just think reading is so pleasurable, relaxing and enjoyable that I want my children to experience themselves as soon as possible! Nothing pleases me more than seeing my kids bury their faces deep into their books. Whatever comes after that (improve their English) is of course a bonus but it's not my primary focus. 

I've managed to find a few chapter books - with much difficulty. I generally scour through the library and the various bookshop shelves one after another just to look for chapter books for Doll's level. I'm looking for chapter books that are relatively thin, with easy to understand context and a storyline that appeals the girl. Yes, i suppose with those criteria, it makes it difficult to find the right one. Still I'm very pleased that I managed to find quite a few, I am even more ecstatic that these books come in a series! Yay, that helps to lighten my search load! I'm listing them here for sharing. I won't put an age category to these books because it very much depends on which level is the reader. But in general, if the child can read Peter and Jane books at level 9 and above, these books should be perfect for them. 

1) Katie Woo by Fran Manushkin

 

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This series is all about moral values and everyday life. Great pick for parents who want their daughters to read and get some moral education. The words are relatively easy to read and understand. Doll can read almost the entire book all by herself. This is one book that I need not read to her.

 

2) My freaky family, Rude Ruby

 

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Don't be fooled by the title of the book. It is nothing immoral or mischievous about this series. I love this set because the stories are simply twisted in a funny way. It is so ridiculous but really entertaining.

3) Amber Brown

 

 

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This is a book about a girl and her best friend, Justin. There are aplenty of puns in this book that can be hard for a 5 year old to understand. But still, Doll loves this book as she found some parts funny.

4) Early readers, various authors

 

 

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This book tickled Doll funny bones. The words are also easy to read and understand. Doll didn't need much help reading this book. Personally, any book that Tony Ross writes or illustrates is always funny and entertaining!

There are many other titles under this series, we have read Rainbow Magic, Emily Mouse's Birthday Party etc.

 
5) Cowgirl and Cocoa, Betsy Lewin

 

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This is a book I just picked out from the library. Doll has yet to read it but I've browsed through the content and I am certain that she will love this series too. It is about the friendship about a girl and her horse and their adventures together.

 

6) The Gaskitt stories, Allan Ahlberg

 

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This series is a tad difficult for the 5 year old in my opinion. It is not that the words used are bombastic or anything but there are multiple storyline going on simultaneously which eventually converged as one. For instance, one chapter focus on the mom, another on dad, then another on the kids and the last on the cat, the cycle gets repeated until they all merged into one ending. It can be quite hard for the young minds to keep up. But Doll likes this series, I suppose the stories are pretty interesting.

 

7) A Faraway Tree Adventure, Enid Blyton

 

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I read this title written by Enid Blyton when I was a little girl. I remember being totally drawn in by the enchanting story and yet not entirely comprehending the magical content. But I know I enjoyed it thoroughly. I was eager for Sonshine to try but hesitant because I don't know if he likes it. So I was ecstatic when I found out that the story is being made it into a simpler version. This means Doll can read it too! And as expected, like the little girl that I was, she too got drawn in by the magic of this book. I am a happy mother seeing my own daughter enjoying the same story that I had once loved.

 

 

Most of the above books come in a series. I love books in a series because it makes the search for similar chapter books easier. I may return back to this site and add on to this list.

Add On



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A book about a girl, cat or is it a cat-girl and her relationship with her friends. Its all about friendship and all the drama that comes with it. It is a great book as the girls get to learn how to cope when friends disappoint, fail, hurt etc them.




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Oh my goodness! This series is HILARIOUS to the MAX! Even my 10 year old enjoys it even though it is way too simple for him. The book depicts the strange activities of a group of students and their teacher and her big, wobbly, jiggly erm, bum. Too bad, there are only 4-5 (I cannot recall) titles under this series. I wish there was more!


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When I set my eyes on the Rainbow Magic series, my heart leaped with joy. I told myself I must expose the daughter to this series. Have you seen the number of titles in this series? It is MASSIVE! The Popular bookshop at Bras Basah dedicated an entire row of shelf to this particular series! As I said, I love books that comes in a series because it saves me from looking out for books for the kids (lazy mama here). I started letting Doll read this series under the Early reader books. After reading two books, she asked to read the intermediate level (those three stories in one books). I really hesitated but I decided to let her have a try. She has indeed proven herself. And that is when I realised she is ready to move on to thicker chapter books.  So, I'll be going in search for such books for her. Here we go!


 

How I teach mandarin at home

Most, if not all, of Doll's kindergarten friends are attending tuition such as reading, mandarin and math classes. But Doll has none of that. Occasionally, I do get a bit jittery, wondering if she is missing out. Yet at the same time, I refuse to start her so early on tuition, it's just not right for me. I also refuse to allow all those tuition centers to capitialise on my fears and suck my money out from me.

But truth be told, I did try her out for a trial at a popular Chinese tuition center. I have  heard raving reviews of the center and never once heard of any kid who dislike the school. I was confident that Doll would love it there, even more so when I saw her skipping to the class with excitement. Who knew, she came out bawling and later resisted any suggestions to attend such classes. It's not the center's fault. She cried because she felt she couldn't keep up and got worried. 

 

It seems that all signs are pointing toward no tuition for her. Hence I try to do what I can with her at home to help her keep at pace with her peers. I don't aim for her to be advance, I just want her to be prepared enough for primary school. Neither do I have hour long lessons with her at home. We are usually done within 15 minutes- almost daily, well I try daily. 

One of the obvious aspect is for her to read in both languages. As with my earlier post, she's well into reading and I don't need to worry about that anymore. But mandarin is a challenge because we aren't fluent in mandarin. My husband speaks no mandarin. And I speak, ok but not -rich-in-vocabulary mandarin. So yeah, we are in trouble. Yet, I refuse to send her for Chinese tuition- yet. Like getting her on the road to reading English using Peter and Jane series, I got her to learn to read Mandarin using books published by Berries tuition center. 

These books are meant for students attending the courses by Berries. But non students like me, can get hold of these books second hand. I bought mine from another mummy but I noticed the second hand book shops at Bras Basah sells a ton of them too! It's easily available. 

 

Like Peter and Jane books, I task Doll to read the berries books aloud everyday. Whilst she reads a page a day from Peter and Jane books, she is to read a chapter repeatedly everyday from Berries book. Once she is proficient in that chapter we move on to the next chapter. We have now completed book 2 of k1 level (mine are the old version) and are now on to book 3 ( there are 4 books in all). 

Now there are many many Chinese readers resources out there but Berries books are my number one choice. Like Peter and Jane books, the words are repeatitive and new words are introduced at a gradual pace. It aims to build the child's vocabulary slowly, one chapter at a time. Over time, the child would accumulate enough words to read a simple Chinese book by herself. 

As she recognizes more words, it is also easier to communicate with her in mandarin. At least now she has a bank of mandarin words in her brain and she can understand alittle. I can't say she can understand a lot (she complains that she doesn't understand her Chinese teacher at school) but we will get there- I hope (gulp). 

I don't just get her to read the books. I know over time she may be just memorizing the words. So I made our own flashcards. I made sure she knows each and every individual word. I would even ask her what the word means and what other words can it be paired up with  i.e she reads "生" and she's expected to say "生日的生"。

 

 

That's not the end. I even came up with my own worksheet according to her reading. I want her to be very sure in what she reads in the book before moving on. In the worksheet I created, I set questions to test her words recognition. I deliberately put words that look similar and test her to see if she can distinguish the two. 

 

I also set word order questions where she has to rearrange the words in the correct sentence structure. 

 

 

And also, comprehension passages. All the words in the passage are words that she has learn to read and understand from the book. 

I seriously think it's more stressful for her to be taught under me than going to the centers. Yet, she refuses to budge and wants me to teach her instead. Oh well. 

 

Puzzle craft

Waiting for the brother to end his tuition class can be dreadfully boring for a 5 year old. In order to kill that 1.5 hours of wait, I would often bring stuff out to entertain her. From books to coloring to worksheets, anything and everything!

 

Yesterday, we did something quite different and fun. Doll dug out my old purchase from Daiso and begged me to let her have a go at it. And I thought why not? We needed to entertain ourselves anyway.

 

 

 

If you have been to Daiso, you may have seen this peculiar looking product. It is usually located where the children items are.

 

It is actually a blank 25-pieces puzzle. We can personalised the puzzle by drawing our own pictures on it. I actually bought this puzzle long ago for my numbering sequence activity. (Yes, I was being overly eager. I bought one too many :P)

 

 

I numbered each puzzle for Doll who was 2 then, to learn her number sequencing. She just had to connect the puzzles in numerical order. More about this activity at this link.

 

 

Well, it was a good thing I bought extra because we had quite an enjoyable mother-daughter time. Each set comes with two puzzles (what a steal isn't it? For just SGD$2!). So, she drew on one and I drew on the other. This mama also needs to kill time you know?

 

She drew a picture of herself and me. I apparently have a yellow face. :I

She made a mistake with the green marker and I told her she could use her imagination to try to correct her mistake. She doodled and finally drew up a table (looks more like a cradle to me). But. I am happy she learnt that she could recreate something else over her initial mistake.

 

And ta-da! My cute penguin drawn by yours truly :D.

 

After ink dried, she took it out and tried to build the puzzles with her friend.

 

Now make a guess which of the two was the harder puzzle to piece up?

The teens and the tens

It is time!

 

It is time to take out my Montessori sets before it turn into dust and before Doll has no use for it! :D

 

I decided to teach Doll all about teens and the tens.

 

Actually I sort of already taught her before but this is just to reinforce her learning.

 

Note, I may not necessarily follow the authentic Montessori way in presenting but it works anyway.

 

 

 

First, we take out our tens beads. Doll determines that there are ten yellow beads strung together in a set.

 

 

Then we lay out the ten beads beside our teen board accordingly.

 

 

Next, we determine the number of beads in each colour set. For instance, the red set has just one bead, the green set, 2 beads, the pink, 3 beads and so on.

 

 

 

With our attention back to our teen board, we slide the '1' on the '10'. Here's where I tell Doll that 10 and 1 makes 11. I show her the 'magic' as I place the '1' on top of the '10'.

 

I also place a red bead, representing one, below the ten yellow beads. I counted them and determined that there 11 beads altogether. And again I told her that 10 (point to the yellow beads) and 1 (point to the red bead) makes 11. I do the same for 12 and the rest of the teens.

 

 

And we continue with the rest (here I only show up to 15).

 

At the end of the session, I randomly queried her how many does 10 and 3 makes or 10 and 5 makes etc, just to check if she understood what was presented. Sometimes, during our day to day I will also throw these questions at her just to reinforce what she learnt.

 

 

Also, I taught her what it means by counting by tens. I used my trustee ten boards. I showed that one ten makes ten, two ten makes twenty (and I counted each bead to show her that) and so on.

 

As with the teens lesson, I would ask her how many does 5 tens make or 7 tens make etc.

 

 

Next, as with the teen boards, I showed her that 40 and 3 makes 43. First we lay out 4 tens yellow beads and a 3 beads set.

 

 

I slide the 3 over the 40 and showed her that 40 and 3 makes 43. We counted the beads and determine that indeed 4 tens and 3 bead makes 43 and so on.

 

These activities are great for the child to learn place value. With these visual aids, it would be easier for the child to understand the place values later on.

 

And here's how I taught my pre-schooler all about the tens and the teens. :)

 

If you would like to know more here's a link on the know-hows and even how to DIY.

 

http://livingmontessorinow.com/2013/09/02/montessori-monday-diy-montessori-teen-and-ten-boards/

 

 

Summing it up

BabyDoll can somewhat do simple mental sums. She is especially good with numbers within 10. She is able to figure out that 5+2 is 7, or 5+3 etc. But oddly, she cannot do 18+2 or 50+2 LOL. I think the bigger numbers intimidates her.

 

To be able to do simple addition and subtraction, the child must be very strong in her number order. She must know what comes before and after a number. With that she should be able to do simple sums like 5+1 or even 14+1.

 

Obviously, Doll isn't strong in her number order when it comes to numbers beyond 20. I felt she just needed a macro view of the number order.

 

I could use my Daiso blocks but I was too lazy to arrange 100 blocks of wood. I recalled I made this colourful 100 board for Sonshine and decided to use this instead.

 

 

 

I rummaged through my shelf and was overjoyed when I found it!

 

I simply used colored paper to make each row and divided each row.  I then used circular sticky labels and stuck on the paper. I wrote down the numbers on the labels and viola it is done!

 

 

 

 

Here's how I helped Doll 'see' and make sense of simple addition above 30. I wrote down the sums.

 

Let's take a look at 63+2

 

 

I gave her a counter, a male fairy counter that is. And told her that 63+2 means, she already has 63 sweets and I gave her 2 more. I had her place her counter on the number 63, the number she had to start with. And told her since she needed to add 2 to 63, she needs to move her fairy up 2 spaces. You will notice this is a bit like playing a board game.

 

It helped her very well. She continued to the rest of the sums I wrote for her.

 

 

by She also dabbled on more sums on her Kindy book. She did herself by using the number chart above.

 

 

Tray activities for Doll

Yesterday I prepared some tray activities for Doll. When she came home and saw the trays, she immediately wanted to work on them. That's the beauty of Montessori, it's invites the child to play and learn. No need for strict routines, it's a natural process. 

The activities I prepared weren't anything academic, it was more to remind her the beauty of 'work'.

Looping the rubber bands around the bottle to work on that fine motor skills. 

Using ice cream sticks to form shapes. Its a good way for them to learn the differences in each shape ie triangle has  sides while a square has four. 

Using an aided chopstick to transfer poms poms into ice cube tray. 

As usual I simple couldn't forgo counting activities. Since Doll has learn to count to 30, I wanted her to practise.  So I prepared her only two boxes (didn't want to overwhelm her) of buttons. She had to count each boxes.  One she had to count up to 26 and another 30. 

I love that she enjoyed herself and didn't see these as 'work'. I hope I can keep this up. These days taking care of two school going kids keeps my schedule very tight and exhausting. 

DIY Montessori Pink box (Tweak)

I love Montessori Pink box activity! But I always find collecting the small objects & finding a place to store them a HUGE hassle. It is also not easy to find the objects individually as most of the time, you are required to buy them in a set amongst other things. It just makes no sense especially when I find no use for the other items in the set. Finding a (large) box is one thing and storing that box is another!

 

I know there are mothers who set up the box and sell them in a set. Still, I find it too costly to purchase particularly if its something that I can easily duplicate myself.

 

So, I put off this activity for a long time. Until, I had a light bulb moment! And here, I present to you...my own version, a very tweaked version of Montessori Pink Objects.

 

Here's my set up. I have longed set up my own movable alphabet box using the cut out letters from our Melissa and Doug set.

 

 

Instead of the small objects, I placed the above puzzles (within the same word family) in the pink box. First, to set the play, Doll build these puzzles.

 

 

 

After she is done with the puzzles, I have her play on our Leapfrog word builder. She had to match the letters from the puzzle to the word builder. It would sound each letter out and read out the word for her. I have her repeat after it.

 

 

After she figured out each word, I gave her my word labels and have her match to the puzzles. I am pleasantly surprised that she immediately recognise these words. Looks like it's working!

 

This is something I intend to do with her later. Here, I want to help her differentiate similar sounding words like 'fox' and 'box'. She will use the cut out letters and identify the beginning sounds of each word.

 

Lastly, again using the Melissa & Doug cut out letters, I will have her spell each word. I hope that by this way, it will also help her see the difference between similar words like 'box'.

 

This will probably be my focus for the next few weeks. I find that Doll is in the sensitive period now in picking up new words and I plan to size this opportunity!

 

 

Pre Handwriting activities

I observed that Doll is ready to hold a pencil and do some tracing. Thanks to the brother, she has been inspired to pick up a pencil and just doodle away. At first, I left it as it is until I told myself I better cease this sensitive period before it passes me by.

 

 

Most of the time, I just give a pencil, paper and simply let her doodle away! I want her to be comfortable in holding a pencil and experience the thrill of seeing how she can draw something just by holding a pencil.

 

 

A Montessori activity, tracing Metal insets, except that mine is the cheap cousin of Metal insets- its wooden inset & smaller than the authentic ones. But it works just as well! According to Montessori, this is a prelude to writing; the child is to trace the inside shape of the inset.  (No she didn't trace the ones on the right of the drawing, it was done by yours truly)

 

If you don't own one but want to do this, you can always find those stencil rulers that come in differing shapes like circle, triangles and of different sizes too. Those work just as well and its CHEAPER! :D

 

 

 

I have also started her on writing her letters. Just to interest her and to get a feel of the letters shape, I printed out the Dot-a-dot printable from Confessions of a homeschooler.

 

If you don't have the dot a dot markers, don't fret. I also used these printable and have Doll traced over them. What I did was to number the circles for her to trace over. The numbering on the circles help her to write her letters in the correct direction.

 

 

 

Alternatively, you can also write out the letters using highlighter and have the child trace over it. It works as well and at no cost! :)

 

 

 

I splurged on the Leapfrog Mr Pencil. It's not costly, but I find it's an unnecessary buy. Still, it did help Doll to learn her letterings. I have been letting her trace the letters and from here she learnt how to write the letters 'E', 'I', 'F' etc. 

 

I say its an unnecessary buy because I think there are many free apps out there for the kids to learn how to write the letters albeit without a pen. I find the Leapfrog pencil a little annoying because one needs to place the pencil in a certain position in order for the censor to pick it up. It can be frustrating & disruptive for the child when the app does not sense pencil motion.

 

I say don't buy because there are many cheaper and equally, if not more, effective than this pencil.

 

 

Another typical Montessori activity.

 

I let Doll trace the letters on sand. Instead of fingering, I gave her a brush to 'write' the letters or draw shapes because I find it rather messy if she use her fingers to trace.

 

That sums up my handwriting activities for my 3 year old!